This chapter explains the meaning of meaning-making for the quarterlife generation. It describes what is called the meaning-quest--consisting of nine core meaning-making questions--and offers two examples of the pedagogy that the authors use in working with students.

This paper explores how a preservice teacher defined, experienced, and transacted with multiple professional communities in becoming a social justice-minded urban English teacher. It extends research on urban teachers and professional communities by arguing that professional community in relation to urban teachers must be informed by…

The issue of sustaining and scaling up professional development for mathematics teachers raises several fundamental issues for researchers. This commentary addresses various definitions for sustainability and scaling up and how these definitions may affect the design of programs as well as the design of research. We consider four of the papers in…

This brief aims to catalog accelerated learning options available within and across secondary and postsecondary education. As we strive to create an education system that is responsive to the needs of all, we must foster pathways that afford students the opportunity to move through secondary and postsecondary education at an individualized pace…

The change in allowing school districts to use the more prevalent discrepancy model or the new addition of response to intervention to determine whether a disability is present has sparked discussion among educators. As districts decide which method to use, it is important to base decisions on factual and researched information. The authors hope…

The author defines and describes authentic materials and discusses their benefits--citing the Input Hypothesis and the Output Principle in support of such materials--as well as some challenges of using authentic materials. Five categories of authentic materials are presented, and sources for materials and ways to use them in the EFL classroom are…

The growth of online learning in the K-12 sector is occurring both remotely through virtual schools and on campuses through blended learning. In emerging fields, definitions are important because they create a shared language that enables people to talk about the new phenomena. The blended-learning taxonomy and definitions presented in this paper…

This paper gathers descriptions on the use of the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and essential skills cross Canada. IALS was developed as a population measure to lay out the distribution of skills and their relationship to other social and economic attributes. The information was taken from federal, provincial, and territorial…

Resource Teachers: Learning and Behaviour (RTLB) are specialised teachers who work in regular schools to help facilitate the presence, participation and learning of students who experience difficulties with learning and behaviour. In focusing upon the RTLB principle of a "collaborative and seamless model of service" (Ministry of…

Over a decade ago, Lenning and Ebbers (1999) envisioned that information and computer technology (ICT) could be used to create virtual learning communities (VLCs) as a "future" form of learning communities. Indeed, almost all academic departments--including psychology--depend heavily on the use of ICT to create and sustain connections among…

Annual "Profiles" reports are comprehensive digests of data on education management organizations. Analysis and interpretation of the data in this report are, for the most part, limited to describing general trends over time. The report is intended for a broad audience. Policymakers, educators, school district officials, and school board…

Definitions are central to both the practice and the power of leadership. This deceptively simple supposition was the basis for an elective doctoral leadership seminar at Illinois State University designed and taught by Lyman in Fall 2005, and replicated by Gardner in Spring 2007. The authors featured the same texts and stimulated students'…

During the 2009-2010 school year, Marzano Research Laboratory (MRL) was commissioned by Promethean Ltd. to conduct a second year evaluation study of the effects of Promethean ActivClassroom on student academic achievement. This report describes the findings from the second year study along with aggregate findings from the first and second year…

This document reports on the findings of an NSF-funded conference (STEM ACT) on the alternative certification of science teachers. The conference explored the issues that have arisen in science education as a result of the proliferation of alternative certification programs in the United States, and to identify the research that needs to be done…

A conceptual background and definition of social education with emphasis on interpersonal values and skills are provided. Secondary Canadian and U.S. social education curriculum development projects are discussed, emphasizing implementation guidelines, program objectives, and potential pitfalls. (RM)